


i might be okay, but i'm not fine at all

by meridianline



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst, Carrots, F/M, are you sad?, big hugs pals, i'M SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianline/pseuds/meridianline
Summary: It's been a week but Yousef still messages.





	i might be okay, but i'm not fine at all

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last fic! I'm so sorry but I got angsty with this one. I'm just gutted for Sana.
> 
> Well played Julie Andem and I can't wait to see how this plays out, but maaan :( 
> 
> QUICK NOTE: I'm not Muslim myself. Please, please don't hesitate to tell me if I've got anything wrong/been offensive. I checked with a friend and tried my best to get it right, but do feel free to call me out.

 

It’s been a week, and still Yousef messages. 

\------

 _how was your weekend in the end?_ He writes on Monday afternoon, after two days of silence. It’s tame, polite, but she forces herself to ignore it, switching her phone off and returning her attention to her ongoing history class. The teacher drones on at the front about World War Two, and beside her, Eva is absorbed in doodling cartoon army tanks all over her page.

She wants to ask him if he knows what he’s doing… if he understands that he just needs to stop. She’s angry with him, she realises, he should know better than this. But she flips to another page in her textbook and begins to take notes. ‘I’m being tested’ she thinks to herself, ignoring the twinge in her gut, ‘stay strong.’

\-------

 _hey,_ he writes on Tuesday evening at 11pm, _did you see lebron being interviewed by this kid on fallon... so cute :),_ then a link to the clip.

She’s lounging on her bed, post-shower, when the message flashes up on her homescreen. She lets it go unread, swiping it from her notifications before turning back to her laptop and opening a new tab.

Her fingers itch to google something cheesy like ‘how to get over a crush or ‘how to deal with heartbreak’, or ‘how long does it take for your heart to mend after the boy you think you’re falling for reveals that he doesn’t believe in the thing you hold most dear’.

Instead, she finds a good streaming link of The Walking Dead and starts her rewatch from the beginning. Doesn’t matter if it feels like the world is ending; she’s not going down without a fight. 

\------- 

She doesn’t hear from him on Wednesday. She tries to tell herself that she’s relieved, that this is what she wanted, that if he _really_ liked her he would still be messaging. But it doesn’t feel like a win.

Her evening is filled with Russebuss scheming (their concept is going to KILL it), and with prayer and calm. She curls up next to her mother on the sofa after dinner, leaving her phone, with its threat of notifications and messages, in her room. Elias and her father are out at their monthly men’s halaqa, and the room is quiet.

“Any news on the boy?” her mother asks as she flips through the pages of her book.

She’d purposefully put the memory of her conversation with her mother out of her mind. She thinks back to that hopeful naive girl who’d gushed over her perfect Muslim boy just last week and cringes.

“Nei,” she says eventually, as lightly as she can manage, and pulls her blanket up tight around her shoulders. “I don’t think he really liked me after all.”

\------

She wakes up on Thursday full of renewed resolve: she is Sana Bakkoush and she is not going to take any shit.

Dressed head-to-toe in black, she doubles up on the eye liner and layers on the lipstick (shade: don’t fuck with me). She rides her hoverboard into school because why the hell not; Chris is still in Berlin but she is not deterred.

Even Noora, Eva and Vilde seem slightly wary when she greets them by the lockers.

“Um Sana,” Vilde begins after a pause, with her usual ‘rabbit in the headlights’ stare. “It’s totally your style and I totally respect it. But, like, now we’re with Pepsi-Max, you need to think about how you come across.”

Sana turns slowly to face her, her locker door swinging open beside her. She _may_ be slightly overdoing it with the evil eye, but this is really not the day for Vilde to be all, well, Vilde.

“It’s just they’re already worried because, you know, you’re Muslim and you don’t party like we do.” At this Vilde takes a noticeable gulp, but continues nonetheless, “I just think if maybe you smiled a bit more, looked a bit more friendly. And maybe wore some other colours… like pink?”

“Thanks for the help Vilde.” Sana slams her locker shut. “But I’m the russebuss boss. Not you. And if I think I need to change, I will. Okay?”

The bell shrills loudly, giving Vilde a chance to mutter something about a class and disappear down the corridor. She’s quickly followed by Eva, who sends an apologetic glance over her shoulder.

“Saved by the bell,  eh?” Noora mutters dryly, then, as if remembering something suddenly, her face lights up: “I forgot to tell you - guess what?”

“What?”

“Yousef added me on Facebook last night!” Noora grins waving her phone in her face.

Sana feels a dull stab of pain somewhere in the middle of her chest. Noora’s still speaking, but she’s not really listening anymore. The news is exactly what she’s been dreading. That Yousef’s revelation hadn’t just killed her dreams of pursuing something more, but that it’d opened up the possibility for other girls. Specifically the possibility of hooking up with her beautiful, kind, blonde best friend.

“...he also sent a message, do you know what he’s talking about?”

Noora passes over her phone, her Facebook message thread with Yousef open on the screen:

_Hey Noora._

_So cool to meet you the other night._

**_Lovely to meet u too :)_**  

_Have a good time on Friday?_

**_Yeah, felt sorry for sana though!_ **

_i wanted to ask… is Sana ok?_

_dont tell her i asked please_

“Why are you showing me this?” She asks, after she’d taken a moment. 

Noora rolls her eyes, “You’re one of my best friends, of course I’m going to show you. Is everything okay? Do you know why he’d ask?”

The messages burn themselves into her brain as she stares at the screen. _So cool to meet you… have a good time on Friday?… don’t tell her i asked..._

“My parents found a bottle of vodka in the house, he covered for me. He’s probably worried they found out.” She picks up her bag and hands the phone back, “Just tell him that I’m fine… and that I’m busy.”

She can tell Noora is suspicious, but quickly busts out her hoverboard before she has a chance to start the interrogation and glides off down the now-empty corridor.

She is Sana Bakkoush and she is above all of this drama.

\------

Friday evening rolls around all too soon. After a visit to the mosque with her mother, Sana remembers she has nothing planned and she’s in bed by 10pm.

She’d vetoed another russebuss meeting at hers for obvious reasons, opting to recruit volunteers to host the next few. Eva and Vilde have found a russebuss party to crash somewhere across the city, Chris is due back from Germany late in the evening, and Noora’s having an enforced movie marathon with Eskild and Linn.

Noora, who is probably messaging Yousef at this very minute. Laughing at his dorky jokes, mocking him for his taste in Facebook vids.

Eugh. She rolls onto her back, desperately forcing her thoughts away from their current track. Her room is lit only by a soft lamp on her bedside table, and she reaches over to snap the switch off.

In the dark, her room is full of comforting shapes and shadows. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine an ocean, covering the entire horizon, waves gently rolling across its surface. She tries to think about the sun glinting off the water, and a gentle breeze disturbing the air around her as she drifts over its surface…

_DING DING_

She’s suddenly falling, falling headfirst into the ocean -

_DING DING_

Her eyes snap open, heart beating fast. She’s awake. Her alarm clock reads 2:26am. Her room is still dark but the glow of the streetlights outside now bleeds in through the thin curtains.

_DING DING_

She’s still shaking off her dream when she reaches for her phone, blearily wondering if Eva, or Vilde, or both, need her to come and rescue them. It takes her a moment to adjust to the light once she holds it to her face, then the words swim into focus:

**Yousef Acar**

_3 messages sent_

Just now

_DING DING_

Another message.

She pulls herself up to sit against her headboard and switches her lamp back on. With a deep breath, and half-knowing she should just close her phone and go back to sleep, she opens the messages.

_are you here?_

_oh shit sorry, vilde an eva just told me your at hme_

_sorry sorryyy sorryy <3 _

_are you ok? miss you_

He starts typing again as she reads. Damn it. Too late to ‘unread’, and go back to sleep. The new message pops up.

_i know you’re reading these. please can you just tlel me if youre okay because im worried_

Immediately, tears spring to her eyes. This isn’t fair. He sounds like the Yousef she knew last week, that she’s known since he first started coming over to the house with Elias in Elementary school.

She’d known that just because he doesn’t believe in Allah, he wasn’t going to become some monster. But she almost wants him to, because this feels so much worse. Him being like this - so goddamn sweet and caring and nice - is what makes her think that maybe… maybe this could work, maybe she doesn’t have to walk away from something that makes her so happy.

“Nothing shall ever happen to us except what Allah has ordained for us” she’s read over and over. Could it mean what she so badly wants it to?

 _I’m fine Yousef,_ she types finally, _you don’t need to worry. Just please stop messaging me._

She presses send before she can think about it too much. He reads it immediately. She waits a while but there’s no reply, there’s no typing.

She tries desperately to swallow past the lump now lodged in her throat. A tear rolls slowly down her cheek. She so badly wants to follow up her message with _have a good night_ or _miss you too,_ something… anything. She knows she can’t: she’s Sana Bakkoush and she will not be defeated by this.

The lamp is switched off once more, and, she closes her eyes, tears still slipping silently onto her pillow.

She dreams of balloons and David Beckham and buggies filled with babies. She dreams of a thousand children playing in a garden as it burns. She dreams of him wrapped around Noora in her living room while her mother prays with Snoop Dogg in the corner.

 _“But I never loved you Sana,_ ” she hears him whisper, “ _who_ _could?_ ”

 


End file.
